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 Jay's Blog |
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 |
In the second epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle’s ‘inspired logic’ is saturated with the paradox of the cross. He views his own weakness through the paradigm of the cross. He boasts and rejoices in his weaknesses; he states that when he is weak he is strong (12:9, 10; 13:9). As to the necessity of his weakness; he proclaims that he is always carrying about in his body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body (4:10).
Paul runs everything (including every problem in Corinth) through the cross of Christ. The Apostle is imbuing upon his readers the fact that the cross is God’s unique way of working in the world. It is a way of working that offends the conventional wisdom of man.
Apart from a spiritual ‘diet’ of God’s wisdom in the cross; our carnal reason tends to take us back to a natural view of strength and adequacy. All of us in the pastorate know the cycle; we view life through the cross for awhile; then gradually return to leaning upon an arm of flesh.
The Goliath demands of ministry press upon us; we find ourselves bullied by the tyranny of the urgent. Then, when it seems we can least afford it; affliction enters--interrupting everything; interfering with our plan to expedite our labor in an effective manner.
As to this affliction, the Psalmist admitted that his flesh failed in the furnace of affliction. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps 73:26). Affliction grates upon us as men; because it puts our weakness on display. It makes us feel Adam’s painful wound of male inadequacy. We hate it at the time—it makes us feel immobilized; like ‘grasshoppers facing giants’.
But God is at work in exposing our weakness—God uses affliction to put us back in touch with Christ as our true Source.
The work of building a supernatural Kingdom requires supernatural power at every turn. Jesus laid down the absolute, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit” (15:5). Christ has made it clear; genuine fruit-bearing is a byproduct, if you will, of abiding in Christ.
We all know the sensation of attempting ministry when our souls are parched and graceless. In my own case; I’ve found that at least 90% of the time when I approach ministry with a poverty-stricken soul; it is because I’ve forgotten that fruitfulness is a byproduct of abiding in Christ.
God is always there behind the scenes; applying the cross of Christ by the Spirit—patiently showing me that my innate weakness is His preferred ‘workbench’ upon which to accomplish the labor that remains unto eternity.
It takes a Spirit-engendered faith (fed upon the message of the cross) to believe that human weakness is God’s chosen vehicle for accomplishing His ‘kingdom’ work. But oh how liberating. Paul’s maturity is a model for us. He had passed the stage in which views of his weakness produced personal trauma. He had grown to the point of contemplating his weakness through the lens of the cross that his boast might be in Christ alone.
A suggested prayer: “Father, grant that I would ‘reason’ spiritually like Paul who saw his personal weakness not as a source of discouragement; but as a stage for your might. Lord I pray for the grace to face my weakness that I might boast solely in the cross of Christ.” |
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